Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker Quick, I acknowledge your deep interest in the Somme and hope that that moving experience this year will nourish that interest. Thank you for your support for the veterans community. I rise today to commend the Treasurer for a terrific budget and for his terrific economic helmsmanship over the last 10 years. A strong economy and therefore a healthy budget position provide opportunities to do things. There is often a misunderstanding that the wealth that a nation needs to generate will just be there and that it is a matter of how one then shares that wealth and opportunity amongst the citizens. We know it to be true that in many years under the former Labor government there were people in desperate search for opportunity. Budget challenges, including the one that the Howard government inherited with the budget deficit back in 1996, show that having the resources available to make choices to support the community and share opportunity and wealth are not things you can just wish for. They take a lot of hard work, and I commend the Treasurer for being the economic helmsman of what will be recognised as a golden era in the Australian nation and the Australian economy by those who will write about it as a piece of history in years to come. We hope to extend this era of good fortune—the budget aims to do that—and to carry forward the opportunities that it has generated and that are being shared by the people in the Dunkley community, whom I represent.

The most direct evidence can be seen by looking at what is actually in the budget. If you see how that good fortune and the resources that it has generated are being applied in a targeted away, you will also see that the budget caters for all sections of our community. It can be rightly labelled as a pro-family, pro-business and pro-health budget. It is a budget the rewards hard work, and that is something we should always keep sight of. It offers substantial tax cuts and it offers strong incentives for people to invest and prepare for their own retirements. It puts resources into building the capacity of the country, and it is funding some of the current strategic challenges we face as well as investing in research and development for the future. So it is a very good and balanced budget, sharing the good fortune that our nation has earned for itself and that has been nurtured by the economic stewardship of the Treasurer and the Howard government.

A compelling example, and one that I have been sharing with school principals in recent days, is the investment in our schools program. What a wonderful initiative that is. It has been a real honour to collaborate with school communities right across the Dunkley electorate: to see things that the school communities themselves have wanted to do but have not been able to do through the traditional state and federal funding arrangements, and see that nearly $2½ million has been shared in the Dunkley electorate from the two rounds that I have been able to announce thus far. That is 16 school communities in the most recent $1.733 million funding round on top of the 13 Dunkley schools that benefited last October from $887,000. Quite simply, this program is a gift. It is a godsend to the school communities, many of which are working in areas of ageing demographics. They are battling to grow their enrolments—which is probably something you see in your own electorate, Mr Deputy Speaker Quick, where the schools have been established for quite some time and were part of a neighbourhood of young families many years ago. In many of those young neighbourhood families, the students have now moved to other parts of our community or gone further, and therefore the demographics in those areas are changing.

You are faced then with a school community with a diminishing population but an increasing need to work to attract students to it. It is almost a vicious cycle in some respects. Victoria’s capital funding process is actually a disincentive to those very schools. Because population numbers are declining, a rigid and raw formula of student to floor space can see schools being told, ‘You’ve got more space than you need because of your student numbers.’ And they are saying, ‘But hang on, we need to make our facilities contemporary to have the technology and learning environment to best support our students and maybe attract more.’ But they are told, ‘No, on our formula you’ve got more space than you need now.’ That is an incredibly demoralising policy posture that the state of Victoria and the education department enforces. It can be incredibly demoralising to the dedicated teachers, the volunteers who selflessly give their time to school communities and the students. They might go past a growth area in my electorate and see a spunky, spankingly attractive brand new school with all the mod cons you could possibly imagine, and yet they are in another community—maybe a more established community—and are not able to have that learning environment.

This Investing in Our Schools program is an antidote to that. It remedies the structural hardship that is forced on areas where the demography is changing the availability of students. For communities such as Dunkley, where we have areas of rapid population growth as well as long-established areas, this program has been wonderfully well received. There are schools that, frankly, have suffered under the Bracks Labor government. They have been arguing to get toilets and amenities of that kind improved. For the school principals I have rung, who have almost squealed with delight that they can get $150,000 to fix the boys and girls toilets that have been crying out for renovation for many years, it is a terrific day. Dare I say it: some of these schools are flushed with cash. They are very happy to be able to renovate those facilities.

Let me share with you some examples of those facilities. Frankston Heights Primary School is looking at a new performing arts centre, and there is a $150,000 Investing in Our Schools grant there. Mornington Secondary College is getting the toilet renovation I just spoke about—just under $150,000 to remedy what is an older section of the school, part of the old Mornington Technical School, where the facilities have been crying out for a renovation and an update in the name of a decent learning environment and decent amenities for the student population. Mount Eliza North Primary School can construct new learning spaces with their grant. I was speaking with the principal of Derinya Primary School last night, and a new multipurpose room there will be able to become a reality because of the Howard government’s $137,000 grant. Mount Erin Secondary College is another example where the basic amenities—in this case, again, the toilet facilities—which are crying out for some attention, will get that much needed renovation with $95,000-plus being made available. My old school, Monterey Secondary College, will be able to upgrade its multimedia equipment, so I am thrilled about that. Karingal Heights Primary School can upgrade its oval and play equipment with its grant.

Elisabeth Murdoch College in Langwarrin can refurbish its classrooms and its music facilities and upgrade its computer equipment with a $140,000 grant to Jeff Davis and the team. The school, which needed to focus on its reputation, can point to the results that, in the coming year, there are about 400 year 7 students going to that college because of the outstanding work of Jeff, his leadership team and the teachers, and the generous support of Dame Elisabeth Murdoch. Jeff and Dame Elisabeth are an impressive collaboration doing great work. Benton Junior College is an interesting example. This was a new school for which the majority of the funding was provided by the Commonwealth—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

I seek leave to continue my remarks at a later date.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

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